


I May Be Speaking to Closed Doors

by mistyzeo



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: schmoop_bingo, Established Relationship, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/pseuds/mistyzeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson makes a Valentine, and then isn't sure what to do with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I May Be Speaking to Closed Doors

Since the inception of my highly illegal and perfectly sublime relationship with my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I had noticed one or two discrepancies between us that, when I counted myself merely his biographer and not his lover, I had not noticed or did not care about, whereas now they rankled and I had to make deliberate efforts not to be put out.

In the foremost, I have described him in some narrative or other as decidedly aromantic, and I had been discovering that this was maddeningly true. His teasing me for being an incurable romantic was also frustratingly accurate, as he had a tendency to view my little gestures of affection and occasional meaningless gifts as baffling and unnecessary. He appreciated them, no doubt, but he was not always sure what I was doing, or why.

I do not blame him for it, not in the least. Without his direct confirmation, I had used his methods to determine that his previous romantic encounters numbered exactly zero, and everything we had done together has been new to him, from chaste kisses on the settee in the afternoon to the height of passion in my bed at midnight.

For myself, it was terribly flattering and endlessly entertaining. For him, it must have been overwhelmingly full of data he had not yet gathered.

And so, while again our affair seems reduced to clay for his brick-making, it is not entirely the truth and I should do well to remember it.

It was February. Holmes and I had shared digs for seven years, and a bed for less than one. I was still lost in what they often call the honeymoon period, and the relief of discovering my long-hidden feelings were returned had turned me into quite the fool. I went about humming to myself and smiling at the wrong time, and both Holmes and Lestrade had given me the odd side-long look of the fondly confused. I decided this month held another perfect nugget of information for Holmes that he had perhaps never contemplated, but which I knew a great deal about.

 _Saint Valentine’s Day._

On the fourth of February, I stopped in at a paper shop, almost beside myself with boyish glee, and purchased a few pieces of foolscap and paper lace, and a bottle of expensive red ink. On the eighth, I spotted a particularly charming watch chain in a shop window, and bought it on an impulse. On the eleventh Holmes was out all day, and so I spent it at my desk, bent double over the paper lace, struggling to compose a verse that would both amuse and charm, and not land the two of us in prison.

He found me that evening quite done in, my papers locked safely away, but I refused his inquiries about my health and took him to bed, all the while fixated on my unfinished poem and his imminent surprise. He noted my inattention and no doubt waved it off as my being overtired or frustrated by a bout of writer’s block, and returned to his own room some time later, once we were both spent.

On the morning of the fourteenth of February, that day I had been looking forward to with such ridiculous enthusiasm, I awoke at the first sliver of dawn to find Holmes standing at my bedside, fully dressed, already demanding my attention.

“Quickly, old boy,” he said, “up and into your clothes. We need to be in Reading by nine, and I neglected to ask you to check your Bradshaw before you turned in last night. Bring it down when you come.” And he disappeared with no more noise than he had arrived, taking the lamp with him.

I rose and dressed, a little reluctantly. This was certainly not the quiet, romantic day I had envisioned, but I had forgotten who my fellow lodger was. Holmes paused for no holiday, much less one to which he had never given a moment’s thought, and I resigned myself to waiting for the right moment.

When I came down to the sitting room he had laid out my breakfast for me and waved his hands impatiently as I attempted to eat it as quickly as possible. Toast and teacup in hand, I managed to unlock my desk when he dashed into his room for something critical, and tuck the Valentine over which I had laboured and the chain I had bought into my pocket book to keep it safe. I might have a moment I thought, perhaps over lunch, to present it to him.

I was quite mistaken. Once I had abandoned my half-eaten meal and obliged him by inspecting the Bradshaw, he whisked me away on an all-day, labour-intensive investigation, that took us from what felt like one end of the countryside to the other. We met first with a distraught young wife whose husband and riches had gone missing all at once. The look that Holmes gave me as she tearfully related her story told me clearly where he believed husband and dowry had gone, and I glared at him quite severely to keep him silent for the time being.

“She is being deceived,” he said rather scornfully fifteen minutes later, when we were out in the garden inspecting the sill of a window. “This is absurd and I don’t know why you’ve insisted.”

“It gives her comfort,” I said, scowling. It was cold, and even in their good leather gloves, inside my pockets, my fingers were stiff with the chill.

“It is folly,” he said, bending to look closer at a smear of dirt. “He has gone quite deliberately, and she is blinded by her passion.” Holmes straightened up and fixed me with a pointed look. “It is quite the way of women, you know.”

“I do not know,” I grumbled, but I followed him as he continued his sham of an investigation around the house.

Something caught his attention, however, and an hour later we were at the train station again, inquiring after the arrival or departure of any strangers in the last three weeks. I returned to the house to ask the wife— Mrs. Dalton-Bray— whether they had had visitors or if her husband had enemies.

“Is Mr. Holmes truly taking the case, Dr. Watson?” she asked, dabbing at her eyes.

“He is,” I replied, with some slight hesitation.

She gave a sigh of relief. “I did not think he would believe me, Doctor,” she said, “but I like to think I know Eddy as well as I know myself.” She gave a little sniff and smiled a watery smile, hopeful again now that my friend was making inquiries on her behalf.

When I found him again, he was writing a telegram in the post office.

“Ah, good,” he said, not looking up. “Tell me what you’ve learned as we dine.”

Again I remembered the Valentine and the gift in my pocket and hoped for a private chance to present it to him, but we dined in a public house and had to shout over the noise of conversation and midday merriment. This was no place to express my affection for Holmes, not in the least. I held my tongue on the matter and relayed instead what Mrs. Dalton-Bray had been able to remember about her husband’s acquaintances.

“Does she have a brother?” Holmes asked, tapping the tines of his fork on the edge of his glass and frowning in contemplation.

I blinked. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“Of course not,” he sighed. “She does, but I must know exactly how estranged they are.”

“Do you suspect the brother has some hand in the affair?” I asked, ignoring his disappointment in my investigative skills.

He smiled at me: a little, secret smile that meant I was on the right track. It was sly for a moment, and then it softened as he looked at me, and I felt a warmth blossom in my breast.

“I cannot reveal all my thoughts just yet, old boy,” he said, wetting his lips briefly, and the little flash of his tongue on top of his fond look only increased the heat in me. I squashed it down rather ruthlessly, however, and he went on, “but I may say that you were not wrong in insisting I look into this affair after all.”

He was the one who had dragged me out of bed after all, I thought, and it would be useless of me to let his ambivalence towards matters of the heart get in the way of his life-long mission.

We returned to Mrs. Dalton-Bray once more to inquire after her brother, and she told us of their last awkward visit some six months earlier, when she had finally demanded that he bring his gambling habits to an end. He had shouted at her, told her she had no right to meddle in his life, and she never would again. Then he had stormed out, and Mr. Dalton-Bray had personally ensured his departure early the next morning.

Holmes sent another wire just before we left, and then spent the train ride back to London in a state of intense concentration, his brow furrowed and his long fingers clasping impatiently on his knees. I looked out the window and thought of my paper Valentine, but knew this was no time to interrupt him. Indeed, until this case was neatly solved, no time would be the time to interrupt him.

It was quite late by the time we returned to Baker Street, but Mrs. Hudson had thankfully kept a modest supper warm for us anyway. Holmes picked at his food and finally rose from the table to rifle through his bookshelves, his extensive encyclopedia of sensational crimes and criminals of the century. Then he disappeared into his room, muttering to himself, and I took the moment’s respite to take out the little Valentine, now a little worse for wear around the edges, and contemplate throwing it into the fire. It would not keep for another year, and I did not want to lock it in my desk and risk— whatever I might risk by squirreling it away.

As I raised my hand to see it off, Holmes came abruptly back into the sitting room and caught me.

“Is that an answer to my wire?” he asked, striding across the room and taking it straight out of my hand.

“No,” I said, trying to snatch it back, “it’s nothing.”

“It’s addressed to Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, eyes narrowing, and he glanced up at me. “In your handwriting. You’ve written me a letter from the sitting room, have you?”

“I haven’t,” I said, scowling at him and making another grab for it, but he held it quite out of my reach and stepped to the mantle to look it over. “It’s got nothing to do with the case.”

“Has it got to do with the way you’ve been acting all week?” he asked, gently prying up the glued envelope flap. “Beside yourself with suppressed emotion, and now rather despondent? Well?”

“Please,” I said, not sure what I was asking for. He raised an eyebrow and opened the envelope. He took the Valentine out very carefully, and I watched helplessly as he stared at it, utterly confounded. He looked at the little image on the front— two winged Cupids playfully aiming their bows at one another— and opened the card. The gold watch chain slid out into the palm of his hand, and he glanced up briefly when he realised what it was. Then he turned to reading the verse inside, and his lips moved as he read it. I cringed as I recognised my intensely embarrassing expressions of affection, of fondness, even of love.

He looked up again, finally, his eyes unreadable. My whole face felt hot, my palms clammy, and I very much wished to either take back the last five minutes, or to disappear entirely.

“This is very foolish,” he said.

“I know,” I said miserably. “It was silly to think it and rash to write it down. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

I threw up my hands in exasperation, at him and at myself. “Because it is Saint Valentine’s Day, and I thought it would amuse you. I realised, however, that it would not, and so I kept it from you and was about to throw it into the fire when you so graciously took it from me.”

Holmes turned the envelope over in his hands. “You carried it with you all day,” he said.

Damn him. “Yes,” I said.

“You didn’t keep it from me on purpose,” he said, “you meant to show it to me but you didn’t have a chance.”

I said nothing, glaring. I felt like a schoolboy, foolish and naive, and he my chiding schoolmaster. He didn't want the Valentine, I thought, and it was nonsense for me to ascribe so much meaning to it, but I had already done so. His rejection of this scrap of paper would feel like a rejection of my very self, and my heart ached in anticipation.

Holmes looked at me for another long, painful moment. “You wrote the verse yourself,” he said.

I rolled my eyes to cover my growing anxiety. “I’m afraid I did.”

He chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip, and asked, “Do you mean it?”

“As much as one can mean an absurd series of rhyming couplets, yes.”

“I’ve seen better praise in the Strand,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “This is a little heavy-handed.”

“Oh, do shut up,” I said, rising finally from my chair and crossing the room. This time he let me take the Valentine back, and once again I had it halfway to the fire before he jumped in my way.

“No!” he cried. “No, don’t.”

“It’s nonsense,” I said, “and it’s rather incriminating, so if you don’t mind—“

“I do, though, “ Holmes said. “Please?”

“If you are keeping it to make me look the fool—“

“I’m not,” he said quickly, laying his hands on my chest, “I’m not. I swear. It’s— it’s rather unexpected, and I’m not sure what I ought to do with it, but.” He glanced away, and for the first time I understood he was taking this seriously, even though he was amused at my course of action. “I take it very kindly.”

“Of course you do,” I said, disappointed. It wasn’t a favour I was doing him, but he certainly thought it was.

“I don’t— damn it, Watson, you’re making this entirely too difficult,” he said, sounding frustrated, and instead of pulling away as I had expected him to do he slid his arms around my middle and pulled us even closer together. “You are very good to me,” he went on, speaking softly now, “and I have not returned the affection very well.”

“Holmes—“ I said, growing embarrassed.

“Hush,” he said, pressing a kiss to my mouth. “You have described me in your works as cool and unfeeling, a reasoning machine, and I have most regrettably acted just so towards you.”

“You haven’t—“ I started again, but he quieted me with another kiss.

“I don’t know how to—“ he said, biting his lip charmingly. “It shouldn’t feel so new these days, but you always do come up with something. I don’t know how you do it.”

His earnestness was beginning to warm me, and I smiled, my anxiety fading.

“But you do mean it?” he asked.

“I do, for what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth a great deal,” he said, “to me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why, Holmes,” I said, “do I detect a trace of romanticism in your voice?”

He pinched me, the effect muted by layers of clothing between him and me, and tucked his face in against the curve of my throat. “You do not,” he said, muffled, and I felt him smile. Then he pulled away and gave me another kiss. “Now, if you must know, I cannot act any further on this particular case until I have an answer to my wire. And since this,” indicating the Valentine still in my hand, “is not that answer, I beg you to think of something we might do in the mean time.”

“I’m sure I can come up with something,” I said, my chest filling with joy, and drew him down onto the settee.

My Valentine I found under my desk the next morning, and I quietly put it away amongst his papers for him to come across in the future, imagining his smile.

♥ ♥ ♥


End file.
